That metal stick looks like it's part of the background. The column to jump straight up in seems more narrow than the morph ball because when I springball straight up I hit the barrier. If I try to get closer to the turning sections then I end up hitting them even though visually it looks like I had a little bit of room still. So frustrating.

I got stuck exactly once, during item cleanup, and had to look it up. Turns out there's a technique I didn't know about. Either I'm blind or there's nothing anywhere in-game that even hints at its existence.

I had to look up that technique as well. Really wish they'd explained that better.

Quote from Serris:

Yeah I just had to go through my arsenal until something worked. Still doesn't make much sense, and I'm pretty sure when you get down to 1 hit left it's just RNG if you actually get to damage him or not

I don't think it's RNG.

There's the three rotating blue lines, right? As far as I can tell, you just need to hit each of them when they're connected.

has anyone tried any weird bomb jumps? i know it's basically pointless due to spider ball (probably? i mean, there are rooms with that goop on the walls, but dunno how common they are), but i'm pretty sure an ibj is possible

also, this is kind of a random thing but i really enjoyed climbing back up into the starting part of area 1 after getting ice beam. it's that place with two of those flying things beside a high cliff on the left and sets of crumbling platforms against the right wall. you have to freeze the first in just the right spot, then not get hit by the second one, all while dealing with the crumbling blocks, which was pretty tough